I've got the BEAR necessities...

Rather than try and transcribe my 10 pages of logbook entries out on the island, I'll try and sum it up in one word.
Bears.

I have two resident bears out there who think it's fun to chase Girl Scouts around (well, doesn't everyone?) and be all pesky and such. Here's one of my bears out there:

This is the bigger of the two...the other is around 100 lbs. and is a young yearling who I think is being adversely impacted by the mannerisms of this older bear. Either way, both are fairly intimidating, and last Saturday I found myself trapped in an outhouse after being pushed in there by the bigger one (who I refer to as Uncle Buck; the little one is George). The bear had a busy morning of following the scouts up the trail as they were moving campsites to be closer to me and my radio, and then intercepted me as I was hiking and backed me right up the outhouse stairs into the stinky thing. Best part of the whole thing was his sitting outside of the door, blocking my exit. : ) It's always an adventure out there. Now the NPS is going through the matrix of different levels of bear deterrence, since running, yelling and screaming really hasn't done a lot of good. We're trying to go through the proper steps of educating the bears, teaching them that people are not equal to food provisions. Unfortunately, that's probably what they've learned already, and undoing that is going to take some work and some sticky (stinky) situations. They have made their presence known on the island since the day I arrived out there, but now it's become more than just having a curious bear perusing the camp every once in a while.

Here's the bear report that one of the protection rangers emailed out on the night of my outhouse incident, and of the weekend in general, trying to find the bears: "The protection rangers (and [Natural Resources] on Saturday) spent the majority of the weekend attempting to "make contact" with the Manitou Island bear(s). Neither "George" the small bear that has been seen on numerous occasions at the fish camp nor "Uncle Buck" the bigger bear that prefers GIRL SCOUTS as COOKIES was seen during any of the bear deterrent activities. Evidently the word had gotten out amongst the bear populations to stay low while the Bear Reductioneers are in the area, but almost on cue shortly after we left the area one of the suspects was observed at the fish camp. [EMT decoy], a recent graduate of the [Protection Ranger] Bear DeterrentTraining Academy fired a .22 calibre "cracker round" at the bear which exploded next to the bear. The bear, unidentified as George or Buck, ran a short distance away and then quickly returned to the area. After using their only cracker round [EMT decoy] and Katie gently encouraged the bear to leave (yelling, screaming, and maybe even a few profanities) and he finally did of his own accord. Attempts will be made throughout the week to attempt a negative reinforcement with both Buck and George."

: )

Otherwise, life on my island is fantastic. I've met many wonderful people, cruised my way through good books, enjoyed an incredible sunset or ten, and am really having the time of my life out there, even with the dingaling bear situation. At the top are some of the pictures I've taken of my camp home and the flora and fauna found out there.

and here's my wonderful home in AK:

Things are definitely great up here and I am feeling more confident about the future with each new day that passes. I miss everyone tremendously and hope everyone is doing well...pop up for a visit if you can, I have Tuesdays and Wednesdays off. Tomorrow should be a great day. I am going to take the cruise boat out to Stockton Island after I get done working in the morning and I am going to sunbathe and swim the afternoon away. I can't really be out in the peak sun hours while out on my island, since I need to be in my park service garb till 4:30pm. Wish me luck with the bears! (da bears.)